Content as Science, Art and Freedom
I welcome critical stances of the content industry. Content is like
oxygen for the internet, that's what we breathe when we log on.
Like the polluted air of an overcrowded urban district, it's often contaminated, and can even be toxic.
Among thick clouds of disinformation dust and marketing promotion,
occasionally there come whiffs of fresh breeze that bring hope, that beyond the foggy curtain, infinite sources of pure knowledge and wisdom do exist on the internet, and they don't need to be boring either.
Not everyone is born a writer, yet, thanks to the magic easy touch connected keyboard, hay presto, anyone can be a content professional, or at least think so
Gerry McGovern is one of the few persistently critical of the content
industry (having most of us moved on to other jobs).
In a recent post he writes: "content should be more scientific".
That strikes a chord. Many chords at once, in fact. If content professionals want more respect, they need to present content as a science, not an art" he writes. Let's talk about science. How to go about it?
Facts versus Opinions
There were early internet days when one would get paid one dollar a word (and the dollar as pretty good then) to write 'opinion' .
Headhunters were scouting internet talents based on the stubborness and their willingness to defend their strong opinions.
I always insisted that opinions should be corroborated by facts, but admittedly I was never very popular in the industry
When it comes to making an argument, it's the facts that count. At least in a state of law
But when we look at the hard facts, a lot of the sugar coating of our glossy world strips off like flaking paint from a damp wall. First, get the facts. When training as journalists (real, professional journalism that is) 'fact checking' is lesson number one. It also happens that 'fact checking' is an essential routine in most reasoning algorithms.
I have seen perfectly logical inferences fail due to flaws in their fact checking loops (if a bat is a bird then....).
Facts facts facts, with appropriate figures to support them of course.
Facts versus other facts vs philosophy (vs fiction)
Scientists engaged in petty spats trying to ridicule each other is
even more entertaining than British politicians arguing in the House
of Commons at Westminster. Try to catch some of it online, cause respectable prime time television is not likely to broadcast such things as scientific spats - while it seems perfectly okay to show politicians literally at each other's throats. Funny world.
Surely one can come up with good facts, but will that be 'all the
facts', or just some? And of all the fact that we can put our hands on, which is most important and more relevant to the question at hand?
Will that depend on a context, on an opinion, or a specific goal?
Scientists like to argue about these things, end up becoming philosophers, although some are reluctant to admit it.
Scientific writing, is always capped by a clear scope, while content
is often like liquid paste that sticks everywyere but you cant tell where its coming from or where it's going.
Hard facts versus Clarity and Simplicity of the Message
Having worked as a science and technology correspondent in London for a few years, I have experience in translating 'scientific language' into a message that people can actually make sense of.
It takes skills and patience to read three or four journal issues and research papers and then writing a few paragraphs of digestible information.
It costs a lot, and it pays little.
I once sat for 3 hours in a chamber in Cambridge at the Hitachi Labs with a labourious Japanese researcher who had discovered something important about nanotechnology in microprocessors and he wanted the world to know. I did not understand much about nanotechnology, his English was limited, and he was spitting a lot while trying to explain to me excitedly about his experiments.
I managed to grasp the jist of the findings, write a story. With my face covered in nanoparticles of saliva, I learned some of the hard facts of scientific content. Slimy stuff. I will never know if the editors had set me up. Call me paranoid.
Good Information Guidelines
Pages and pages have been written about quality of information. Today, content is still largely marketing and propaganda, and that is dangerous. Good content should follow the guidelines for information and good journalism, which shoud always be advocated and followed by content providers. In an ideal world at least.
Content as Art
Admittedly, free narrative and personal views have a place of their own, especially when hey are entertaining and fun. Capturing readers' imagination is an art. Art has always been cultivated by 'establishments'. Since early times, the best artists were hired by the Church to decorate chapels and cathedrals, and the best poets and minstrels recruited by the royal courts to entertain bored aristocracy.
This has not changed much to date.
Most artists - as well as scientists - are still mercenaries, working for those who pay the highest wages, or in some cases, forced to work for those who hold the keys of the chains that tie them.
Freedom and a hot meal
But there is no art, and no science, without intellectual freedom and a good meal. In so many countries today people still have no freedom to think, and no food on their plates, no clean water to drink.
Yet technology is used as the easiest form of escapism, and when given computers the kids play online games every day until late.
Few learn how content can improve their lives, make them wise and knowledgeable and more loving, speed up learning, help them build a good society, an economy, make their visions come true.
These are the issues that content professionals should be turning their attention to, urgently, if they are interested in the world we live in today
I welcome Gerry's admonition to become more rigorous about content, by all means. Yet I call for content professionals to take a look at the 'world facts' today, and do not turn a blind eye on the sorrow.
The hard facts, do tell a real story. However grim, it's likely to be a good one.
Paola Di Maio is a researcher and editor of content-wire.com
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